


What Comes After Friendmates?

by frnklymrshnkly



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables - Freeform, Being a Good Friend, F/F, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Grief, Hair care, Healing, Moving On, Reading Aloud, Roommates, Space Families, Vulcan upbringing, Waiting, endearing snoring, friendmates, frustrated attempts at nicknaming, full-frontal feelings, getting on the same wavelength, hard-core hand holding, lack of subtlety, oh em gosh they were roommates, pov switching, roomfriends, terrible mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 02:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16255247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frnklymrshnkly/pseuds/frnklymrshnkly
Summary: Tilly falls in love, Michael heals, and the two of them read it out.





	1. Catching Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyjax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyjax/gifts).



> Dear ladyjax, I was really excited when your pinch hit came up because I’ve been riding the Michael/Tilly feels train for a while but was too nervous to challenge myself with sci-fi. I really enjoyed writing it and I hope that some of it brings you a jolly or two. While I love Star Trek, I am not a veteran Trekkie. I did try my best to comply with Discovery’s canon, but if errors slipped in, I beg your pardon.
> 
> A thousand thank yous to the kindest beta ever, **AudreyV** , for helping out a rando in need. All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Rated T because swears.

When Tilly meets Michael Burnham the first time, she knows she’s got a built-in friend, even though she can tell Michael is sceptical. That’s the whole point of roommates. Roommate basically means roomfriend—someone you can tell about your polyester allergies and your snoring thing. And then, before you know it, your roomfriend is on the way to becoming your friendmate. You’re apologising to them for lying about assigned seating, and accidentally signing for parcels from the ghosts of their past, and running around the _Discovery_ with them in themed athletic wear—all of which are things that friendmates do, Tilly’s fairly sure.

Well, those last two might be specific to Tilly and Michael. Tilly likes the idea of that. No one to date has appreciated Tilly’s wealth of personality as much as she herself does, and, to be fair, she’s not sure if Michael does either. But as the days roll by on the _Discovery_ , Michael definitely comes a lot closer than Tilly’s colleagues at Starfleet Academy or her (awful) mother ever managed.

And anyway, it’s not like they make the transition from roomfriends to friendmates overnight. While Michael battles the demons inside the barricaded fortress of her heart, Tilly takes a pickaxe to those same battlements—the ones she guesses Micheal must have constructed as one of the only humans on Vulcan, as a convicted mutineer, as the killer of her mentor—her beloved Captain. 

When Tilly and Michael accompany Stamets and Landry to the USS _Glenn_ , Michael says she’s not staying long enough to make friends. But she does stay. And she becomes Tilly’s friendmate. And everyday they work together to transmute Stamets's cerebral genius into something tangible, and mobile, and functional. Tilly and Stamets and Michael aren’t the only people working hard in engineering, but somehow it feels like they’re the only three who actually understand just exactly how fucking cool what they’re doing is, how fucking cool the network is—what it means for the connectivity of life, the universe, and everything. (Tilly’s been reading a lot more since Michael handed her that copy of _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_ ).

Tilly knows the whole time that she and Michael are friendmates, and she knows that Stamets is her friend too—even if he terrifies her. 

But, Tilly suspects, Michael didn’t really know they were friends until she woke Tilly up one morning, threw a DISCO shirt at her and started lecturing Tilly about some shit called the six-minute mile in that Vulcan monotone. Tilly didn’t then (and still doesn’t) have any spare fucks to give about six-minute miles, but she’s hardly the type to pass up a bonding experience with her best (and only (ever)) friendmate. 

Tilly’s only problem with their friendmateship arises when Michael collapses and experiences vicarious mortal peril, because that leads to unanticipated hand-to-hand contact, which makes Tilly feel some feelings that are new and scary but also welcome. Kind of like when she’d arrived in her barracks to find Michael lying stoically on her hypoallergenic bedspread. (Tilly still kind of wishes Michael had let Tilly call her Mickey, even if Michael really does suit her.)

After Michael demands that Tilly put her life at risk so she can save her emotionally distant (and now satisfyingly regretful) surrogate father, she admits that she was wrong to advise Tilly to follow Michael’s path to command. Knowing Michael believes Tilly can work her way to Captain without egg-white burritos and 6.5-second goals causes Tilly’s new-and-scary-but-welcome feelings to launch a full-frontal assault even as she imagines cutting a swath through her fellow officers with chatty charm and bouncy hair. As it turns out, Tilly doesn’t give up the running—she still does it. These days she follows it up with a syrupy short stack and a green juice chaser, because maple and butter and fried cake and veggies are all basically yum.

So, long story short, while Michael strides around the _Discovery_ , confident and logical as ever, impressing Lorca and Stamets (and Tilly, duh), and slowly thawing out her artic approach to friendship, Tilly, who’s never before wanted to smooch another woman, starts entertaining thoughts about asking Michael out, maybe to breakfast, maybe like a date. And it wouldn’t have to be weird, because they always eat breakfast together anyway. And it would be really convenient, because they already share a bedroom, so afterwards they could get it on in a bed that wouldn’t aggravate Tilly’s sinuses and trachea. 

It’s the best time of Tilly’s life to date. She and Michael are becoming road dogs, and Stamets drops enthusiastic f-bombs with her in engineering as the three of them actualise theoretical biophysics like the super cool geniuses they are. Tilly estimates that she has somewhere between fifty and sixty-five percent worked up to asking Michael out for a breakfast followed by smooching when Ash Tyler shows up on the _Discovery_.

As soon as he does, Tilly’s readiness to make a move drops to subzero. She backs off completely because she can feel the vibes between Michael and Tyler, maybe even better than Michael, with her Vulcan upbringing, can. On the night of the party—or Groundhog Day, as Michael (with her adorable knowledge of classic earth pop culture) calls it—Tilly dodges kisses from dudes playing beer pong as she all but thrusts Michael into Tyler’s wake. She gets it, the thing between them—they’ve both been in the shit, they both feel like outsiders on _Discovery_ , no matter how welcome the crew makes them, and they’ve both got the whole sexy brooding thing down (plus fantastic hair, a subject on which Tilly considers herself an expert.)

Tilly confides in Michael that she only used to go for soldiers, but that she’s been considering musicians. (She does not mention that this decision was made after reading (during the one minute of non-sleeping free time per day that Stamets graciously gives her) about the musical training that children on Vulcan receive as part of their education.) Tyler says some rousing shit about comradery and sacrifice, and, honestly, Tilly can’t blame Michael for going starry-eyed over it. Hell, Tilly’s starry-eyed too, albeit over Michael’s stars—it’s a whole meta thing. Michael would like that; Michael likes meta discourses. And Michael also likes Tyler, so when he makes his way over to Michael and Tilly, Tilly boogies out of that scene, because that’s what a good road dog does. 

The best time of Tilly’s life is brief, and closely followed up by a period of top-tier shit. Michael and Tyler get more serious, and while Tilly is genuinely happy that Michael has another person in her life, maybe even someone who can understand her better than Tilly can—a fellow survivor of death and devastation and trauma, someone else dragging ghosts around with him—it takes all of her inherent energy to remain nothing more than Michael’s supportive friendmate while Stamets is unresponsive and they’re all trapped in a fascistically-dominated alternate universe where her Mirror-self realised all of her real-self’s goals by killing people.

When Tilly impersonates Captain Killy for the second time, Michael is by her side, preparing her. Michael tells Tilly to fortify herself with the crew’s—with Michael’s—faith in her. And Tilly does. It’s the most intense thing Michael’s ever said to her that isn’t a reference to either some horrible bygone event or a bone-chilling possibility for the future. In that moment, Michael’s defenses of logic and distance drop, and she hands something to Tilly—a lifeline. Tilly grabs it and holds on for all she’s worth.

Tilly can’t go with Michael when she leaves the _Discovery_ to infiltrate the _Shenzhou_. But Michael’s words stay with Tilly. Every time she has to play the role of Captain Killy, they resonate in her ears and in her heart and she is fortified. She has a friend who believes in her. She thinks of Michael, of how important it is to play the role convincingly in order to keep her safe as she carries out her mission in dangerous waters, and says horrible things to holographic Terrans (which is actually the only silver lining). When the communication channels close, she sags with relief, gives Saru his chair back, and gets high-fives from Detmer and Bryce while Rhys quotes back her most recent Killyisms with amusement and Owosekun makes a note of them. 

It makes a nice, slightly less nerve-wrecking change when Tilly get to send her own hologram to Michael to ensure Saru’s line is secure. Michael is struggling when she makes contact, and Tilly wants to tell her she can do this—she can do anything because she’s a fearless, logic-wielding genius and a seasoned commander (though Tilly think’s maybe it’s best she doesn’t mention that bit and for once manages to avoid placing her foot inside her mouth). And, extra bonus, Michael’s totally rocking her asymmetrical gold breastplate. But the thing is, Michael already knows all of this about herself. Tilly’d like to tell her to make sure she comes home, but that sounds like she doesn’t trust it will happen, and Tilly trusts Michael to work miracles. Tilly wants to tell her she loves her, and to thank her for risking her life so they can all get the fuck out of this racist, homicidal dystopia. But it’s not for her to lay her love bare. Michael has Tyler’s love, and he’s there with her, in her corner. So Tilly just says, “Hang in there, friend,” trying to infuse each letter, syllable, and word with best friendmately support.

It’s awful being on the _Discovery_ while Michael and Tyler and Lorca are away. Where normally Tilly would relish having the chance to take charge of engineering, to distinguish herself by making innovative astromycological propositions for healing Stamets’s condition, it feels flat. Even Saru’s circuitous implication about a Command Training Program recommendation feels hollow.

Things look up when Stamets begins to show signs of life (including enviably dewy skin), and Tilly has a day that very nearly borders on good when Stamets is back up and about and listening to her ideas and thanking her for her inspiration. No shit—fucking inspiration—Stamets’s bonafide words! Tilly lets Stamets’s praise fill her up like Michael’s had. The two of them—Michael and Stamets—have become Tilly’s family. She doesn’t know if she’s theirs, and that’s fine, because she has found and _earned_ new family. Space family. And considering how shitty her regular family is, that’s nearly as fucking cool as jumping through the mycelial network, in her book. 

Of course the pendulum swings back again (as those unfeeling assholes do) when Michael returns and things with Tyler are ruined because he went berserk and all of _Discovery_ knows that Tyler isn’t Tyler anymore, and that someone else wearing his skin killed Culber, attacked a friendly rebel ally, and tried to choke Michael out. Tilly figures probably the hardest thing she’s ever had to do is urge Michael to bury hatchets with Tyler. It’s definitely harder than taking meals with him in the mess hall in a show of solidarity. Because that's not just a show; she means it completely. What Tyler is going through is so fucking serious there’s no way Tilly can let him sit alone, no way she can let Michael shut him out without saying anything.

It’s not like Tilly’s too busy terraforming a moon or saving all their asses with her incredibly cool and dangerous plan or anything… She’s a superb multi-tasker. All of the years she spent tuning out her mother’s insults as she detangled her hair trained her for this—for prepping to grow more spores while simultaneously encouraging Michael to resolve things with Tyler and (!!!) ignoring how the possibility of their reconciliation makes her feel. It’s not a bad feeling. But it’s not good either. It’s a very confused, very fluttery feeling that makes her want to flop down on her bed dramatically and make a fluttery, “pfffftt” sort of mouth noise, or maybe say something like, “Oh, _brother_.” But she can’t because she’s got to save all of their lives. It’s her turn. 

So while she works, Tilly does her best to support Michael. The network of emotions that take over Tilly’s heart and mind is at least as complex and tangled as the one that brought them to the Mirror Universe. On the one hand, Michael is devastated, and Tilly wishes she could make her friendmate feel better. On the other, Tilly knows Tyler hurt Michael—hurt her in every way—and she wants to hold him to account. That hand is locked in a thumb war with another one that knows with total, frustrated certainty that Tyler’s actions were so not his fault. An additional, more selfish hand is wringing itself over wanting everything back how it was between Michael and Tyler, because watching her friendmate/space-family member suffer is the shits. The most selfish hand of all clutches a wish that Tyler had never been “rescued” or else that she’d at least brassed-up and asked Michael out for a smooching breakfast before Tyler arrived on the _Discovery_.

Maybe Michael would have said no, but Tilly would know one way or the other, and she could be proud of herself for pouncing like a Strong Independent Woman™.

Tilly is glad when Michael says her goodbyes with Tyler. She doesn’t pressure Michael for any details; Michael’s ability to express her emotions might not have been well exercised during her upbringing on Vulcan, but she has a natural aptitude for acting from her conscience. Her personality is like a textbook example of the nature/nurture conglomeration. And Tilly thinks that Michael’s xenoanthropologist’s mind must appreciate that. Tilly appreciates it. 

She trusts Michael to do right by herself and by Tyler, and that’s why she puts herself bodily between them as they head to the transporter room to beam down to Kronos. Pieces have been said. Decisions have been made. Tyler might not deserve the raw deal he’s got, but neither does Michael. And, really, though she feels for Tyler, Tilly just plain cares about Michael’s feelings more. Perhaps that’s why she’s genuinely gutted on behalf of Michael’s broken heart, despite knowing that if she were given the chance she’d do everything she could to mend it. 

Tilly’s never been hostile towards her feelings, but lately they’ve been about as clear as mud. Getting high on volcanic dust really doesn’t make them any clearer. And, if she’s being honest, neither does being accepted into the Command Training Program after receiving a commendation for a bunch of activities that really mostly make her want to have a marathon nap.

Tilly thinks it should help that Tyler is out of the picture, but his physical absence from _Discovery_ does little to bring Michael out of her stoic Vulcan grief over the loss of her first love. So Tilly waits for the volcanic dust to wash out of her system so that she can take up her place in the Training Program and does everything she can to ensure that Stamets’s work on a substitute for a human spore-drive pilot goes smoothly (and distractingly) and makes herself the best friendmate/space-family member that Michael could have ever imagined… if they imagine on Vulcan, that is… and if they even know about friendmates and space-families, which Tilly doubts, because she kind of made that (awesome) shit up.


	2. Hanging In

Tyler’s been gone for four months. In that time the _Discovery_ has resumed her rightful role as a science vessel. Michael is once more taking part in landing parties and exploring. She’s walking over new topographies while the party’s instruments map them, meeting peoples of which the Federation knew nothing before, taking her notes back to _Discovery_ and working and working and working, building up Starfleet’s databases, expanding its knowledge. She used to love this—the quest for information, having the privilege of interacting with other cultures, learning from them—the opportunity to help Starfleet better itself every time she transports off the ship.

These days, though, she’s doing it all on autopilot. Michael knows for a solid gold fact she wouldn’t be coping at all without Tilly.

Now that Michael’s moved back into a command role in an official capacity, with additional duties as a trained xenoanthropologist, she and Tilly aren’t living in each other’s pockets like they had been. In the mornings Michael leaves Tilly snoring across the room as she heads to her daily meetings with Saru. At some point, Tilly heads to engineering and lends her heart, along with her mind and her energy, to Stamets for a while.

Michael’s responsibilities as commander and First Officer are hardly conducive to a nine to five schedule. And Tilly often works late with Stamets, staying after the rest of her shift retires for the day, following Stamets’s lead as he works himself to the bone to avoid thinking about Hugh.

Yet whenever Michael walks through the door and into their shared barracks, Tilly is there, awake, often pre-reading training materials. Without fail, these are set aside as Michael is treated to a bright greeting. Michael doesn’t know how Tilly does it—where her endless energy and optimism come from. She’s fairly sure she herself had not been so excited about command training. Determined, certainly. Top of her class, it goes without saying. Dedicated to a thorough mastery of the materials, of course. 

But Tilly seems to love it in its own right, and it makes Michael feel just a little bit lighter to see her friend—who’d been called to do, truthfully, far more than Michael had initially thought her capable of during Lorca’s tenure as captain—still have enthusiasm to burn.

When Michael sits down on her standard-issue bed, Tilly starts babbling about the possibilities that she and Stamets eliminated that day, or the concepts they’d mulled over together. For Michael, Tilly’s voice is like an anchor keeping her steady in rough waters. There are moments, so many of them—when mentions are made about the rebuilding of the Klingon Empire, or couples walk about the ship holding hands or kissing, even just spending time together, or, worst of all, fighting—when Michael thinks it would be easier to jump overboard and let the storm take her. Sarek would call these moments pointless in their self-indulgence. Michael would agree with him. So she stays the course. She has been given a second chance at Starfleet, at her career, at life, and she’s not giving it up for anything, especially not something as common as a broken heart.

So Michael anchors herself with Tilly’s musings. And she doesn’t just let Tilly’s words wash over her either, nothing more than white noise; here, in their room, she listens attentively. Sometimes Michael asks questions about how Tilly thinks Stamets is doing, offers suggestions about the calculations Tilly’s working on, jokes about how many more days it is until Tilly’s drug test comes back clean. Sometimes Tilly asks the questions, quizzing Michael about training experiences, what Tilly can expect, and whether or not her logical, raised-Vulcan approach caused clashes with her mentors and superior officers. 

It’s an interesting interplay between them—Michael has so much more practical experience of Starfleet, but Tilly is so much more seasoned when it comes to matters of the heart.

When Tilly talks herself out… that is, when Tilly is ready to change the subject, Michael follows her lead. It’s not the same thing by rote every day. Some nights Tilly asks Michael straight up if she’s okay. Michael always answers truthfully. Some nights Tilly keeps things light, chattering about when they’ll get new holodeck programs or why the replicator can never seem to get hollandaise right. Some nights—and Michael doesn’t know how Tilly manages this (perhaps there is Betazoid in her family?)—Tilly can just tell Michael is wrecked. On these nights, Tilly smiles her sad, understanding half-smile, shuts up, pulls out the well-worn copy of _Alice_ that at some point came to belong to both of them, and reads. Michael doesn’t cry, but she’d like to. It’s annoyingly apropos. If Michael had thought going to the Mirror Universe was like an adventure through a looking-glass, she’d gotten more than she’d bargained for when her lover turned out to be… not. Nothing. No one. When he’d tried to throttle her. When he’d left to do his bit for the Klingon Empire. To be with L’Rell. 

Nothing in Michael’s life is anything like she’d expected it to be. It feels upside-down and inside-out and it’s not that it doesn’t feel that way when she’s with Tilly; it’s that Tilly doesn’t ask or expect Michael to feel otherwise, to pretend. When Michael tells Tilly her day was shit, Tilly snorts and nods. Tilly understands, even if she can’t relate. It’s a skill all its own, Tilly’s empathy. She doesn’t have to have experienced Michael’s plight herself to bear witness to it without flinching. Her heart is big enough to carry them both right now. 

So they talk, or they read. In either case, Michael is more frequently the listener, albeit an active one. Largely because Tilly is both the instigator and the only one of them who does character voices. Tilly reads until Michael tells the computer to turn the lights out, signaling she needs to retreat now, to process alone, fortified by Tilly’s faith that she is strong enough to make it out of this grief in one piece. 

Tilly never talks after lights out anymore. She still snores, though Michael doesn’t mind.

* * *

Time passes. Each day, Michael feels a little more engaged by her duties, whether she’s on the bridge or in Saru’s ready-room or reprimanding a cadet for some trifle. It’s like she is, inch-by-inch, a little more present, instead of just there. It’s an agonisingly slow process.

Michael tells Tilly this one night after Tilly asks her how she’s holding up. 

Tilly smiles full-on and nods. 

“That’s so good to hear," Tilly says. "Look at us: kicking ass and taking names, coping and maintaining super hair standards. Well, I mean, you are. I’m sort of like in-training to kick ass and take names. Or I will be soon. Anyway, I promise once I'm clean I’ll crush this program and join you in ass-kicking and name-taking.”

“You don’t need training for that, Tilly.”

“You know what, you’re so right about that,” says Tilly, nodding to accept the compliment before flopping down on her bed. “Things are looking up.”

* * *

The _Discovery_ is exploring uncharted regions on the edge of the Beta Quadrant when she receives a hail from Admiral Cornwell. Michael follows Saru into his ready room, where Cornwell’s hologram appears. 

“We’ve been keeping an eye on L’Rell’s movements. She’s having moderate success uniting some of the minor houses. We think if she can get one or two of the more influential houses to throw support behind her, she has a real shot at making something lasting here, instead of just forcing them to play nice with each other for fear she’ll blow Kronos to kingdom come.”

“What does this mean for Starfleet, Admiral?” Saru asks. “For the _Discovery_? I assume you did not hail us personally simply to keep us abreast of the situation.”

“No, I didn’t. I’ll keep it short. Starfleet is interested in entering into talks with the Klingons—diplomatic talks.”

“Toward what end?” Michael asks. Her heart is suddenly racing under her uniform.

“At this point, to suss out the possibilities. At the least, we’d like to negotiate more full and lasting terms of coexistence. At most, Klingon entry into the Federation.”

“But, Admiral—” Michael starts.

Saru talks over her. “Does Starfleet seriously think there is a chance that the Klingons would entertain joining the Federation?”

“Not really,” Cornwell levels with him. “But Starfleet does want to show readiness to share in peaceful relations with the Klingons. L’Rell is their most diplomatic leader in Starfleet’s memory. We can’t squander this chance to establish peaceful precedence for the future.”

“Of course,” Saru agrees. “How does this concern the _Discovery_?”

“We need you to carry out some preliminary talks.”

“With L’Rell?” Michael can’t believe that the leader of a shaky, newly reformed empire has time to meet for talks that are likely to go nowhere. Unless, of course, L’Rell is serious about diplomatic relations.

“No. We’re sending Ash Tyler. He’s L’Rell’s closest aid, and he has established connections with members of _Discovery_ ’s crew that—”

“No.” Michael says reflexively.

“Excuse me?” Cornwall voice is not unkind, but certainly expresses little patience for speaking out of turn.

“The _Discovery_ will, of course, make every effort to make Tyler welcome and to lay the ground work for further talks,” Saru interjects, giving Michael a look that plainly says ‘not now.’

“Good.” Cornwell gives Saru a few more details, filling him in on how much diplomatic authority will be vested in him for the purpose of the informal, preliminary talks. 

Tyler is due to spend three days on _Discovery_.

When Cornwell’s hologram disappears, Michael requests a leave of absence. Saru declines.

“I will be occupied hosting these talks. Starfleet is sending a small contingent of ambassadors trained in diplomatic negotiations, but I will need you to see to the day-to-day running of the ship.”

“Of course, Captain.” Michael doesn’t even know what she’d been thinking with that request. It was so impulsive, so reflexive, so illogical. And that’s not the kind of commander she wants to be. “I would never abandon the ship or the crew,” she pledges.

“I know you wouldn’t, Number One.” Saru pauses. “I think that Starfleet had hoped you might be an asset to these talks. But you need not be present. You need not… see him.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

* * *

Gossip travels at warp speed amongst the crew. No one says anything to Michael. No one even throws her pitying looks, for which she is truly grateful. But she can tell, because when she collapses onto her bed later on, still in full uniform, she can hear Tilly across the room make a sound like, “Ah-“

But she must think better of it, because she gives Michael a few quiet minutes, then launches into the most dog-eared section of _Alice_.

* * *

When Tyler transports aboard, Michael is not, as is customary for an FO, there to welcome him with the captain and command staff. Saru excuses her, and Michael plans her movements through the day so that she’s always a step ahead of them, never in the same room, never even in the next one over. 

She doesn’t know how she feels, really. She knows she said goodbye to Ash. Only she didn’t and that’s why this hurts so badly—because she knows she is grieving, and not just the loss of a relationship that could have been really… something. 

It’s so much worse than that: she knew a man and loved him and then he was worse than gone—he never really had been. Logically, she knows grief cannot be rushed, and that it is normal for humans to take some time to process emotions surrounding loss. She also knows that in most situations, the mourning person isn’t confronted with the still-animate body of the person who’d loved them one night and then laid hands on them in violence the next. And that’s why she can’t see him. She needs a clean break. She can’t go backwards—that has never been her way. Even in dire moments when she doesn’t know what lies ahead, Michael has always put one foot in front of the other.

So that’s what she keeps doing. On Tyler’s second day aboard, Michael keeps _Discovery_ running ship shape and listens to Tilly read before bed. 

Customarily, Tilly gets all her babbling out of the way _before_ she begins reading. Tonight, however, when she’s finished reading about Alice’s safe return home, she asks Michael, “It’s nice to think that you can go home again, even after you’ve been turned upside down, don’t you think?”

Like at least half of Tilly’s queries, it’s rhetorical. It’s not necessary or even reasonable to answer rhetorical questions. But Michael looks across the room at the shape of Tilly, sitting with her knees drawn up, _Alice_ propped open and resting on them, her hair loose, and just says, “Yes, it is.”

Tilly turns her head to look at her, and smiles. “You’re going to be okay, you know.”

“Sometimes I know that, yes.”

A few moments of pause see a comfortable silence flag under the weight of sudden tension. 

“Are you really not going to see him at all?”

“Tilly,” Michael admonishes.

“Well, are you? I saw him—he came to the mess for lunch today and a bunch of us caught up a bit. He seems to be doing well, but he misses you. He didn’t say anything, but I could—”

“You told me to say goodbye months ago and I did. That was good advice, Tilly. I can’t go backward now. Things were getting better, easier… My work was…" Michael stops for a moment to gather her thoughts. "It’s been feeling like my work again, not like something I have to do to avert disaster.”

“I get that,” Tilly says, and she has the decency to sound a little sheepish about trying to force the issue. But that doesn’t stop her from mustering up for another push. “But what if—”

“I can’t see him again, Tilly. I’m afraid.”

Tilly scoffs. “You’re not afraid of anything. You waltzed right up to Ripper—before we knew he wasn’t dangerous—and fed him out of your hand. You faced the Emperor in the Mirror Universe. You—”

“I’m afraid of how I’ll feel about him, Tilly.”

“What do you mean? Do you think you could work things out?”

“I’m afraid I don’t want to. It’s been months now. Things are getting better. _I’m_ getting better. What if I see him and the conflict isn’t even there inside my heart anymore? What if it took me less than a year to be okay with this?”

“Yeah, that’s a load of bologna,” Tilly stage whispers. “I think it’s safe to say you’re _not_ okay with this.”

“But what if I can be?”

“Whoa, heavy.” Tilly blows out a breath loudly and concedes. “Well, if you count the nine-month jet lag from our jump home, it’s almost two years.”

Michael laughs at that because it’s funny and it feels good. 

“Seriously, though, you know what? You’re right," Tilly says. "You did the whole goodbye thing already. I guess it wouldn’t be _logical_ to do it twice.” 

“No.” Michael takes some comfort in that.


	3. Forging On

It takes six months, one Klingon delegation, fourteen landing parties, three new pillows, and five _Alice_ rereads for the volcanic dust Tilly huffed on Kronos to wash out of her system. Rules are rules in Starfleet, and no one gets into the Command Training Program with traces of mind-altering drugs in their system, not even galaxy-saving heroes. Tilly’s ready to start, but also doesn’t mind the wait. She’s taken so many steps towards her goal of a captaincy since she joined Starfleet—and she’s done enough double time for her whole career already. She trusts that she’ll make her goal a reality, and what’s an extra six months in the face of having built up that kind of confidence?

After her first-day orientation, Tilly is bagged. She thinks she’ll nab a shower before Michael gets back, because that way she won’t waste one minute of talking Michael’s ear off on lesser activities like bodily hygiene. Who’s she kidding, she loves hygiene—lather, rinse, and repeat, is like her mantra. But she loves talking to Michael more.

She doesn’t make it to the shower, though, because their standard evening routine is thrown off by Michael’s presence. Michael never gets back before Tilly; something about being responsible for the lives of hundreds of people floating through the void 24/7...

Yet here she is, sitting on Tilly’s special bed with something small beside her that looks like cloth. Tilly hopes it’s not polyester. 

Michael stands as Tilly enters the room and smiles. “How was your first day?”

“Equal parts exhilarating and snooze-worthy.”

“I’m not sure how that works.” 

“It’s because my brain knows that things will get more interesting than today’s parade of red tape.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath there,” Michael advises. “It takes a while to get to the good stuff.”

“I can wait.”

“I know you can.” Michael sounds like she means it. “Here, I got you something.” Michael turns and grabs the hopefully-not-polyester-cloth-situation off of Tilly’s bedspread and hands it to her.

“A present?! For me!? You absolutely should have, Michael, thank you!” Tilly snags her gift from Michael and begins unravelling the cloth that surrounds it. “Did Stamets tell you to do this? Wait, what am I saying, he has even less care about social graces than you do. Stamets has uncare.” Tilly laughs at her own banter.

“He cares about you.”

“Oh, totally,” Tilly agrees. “But he didn’t get me a first day present. He just told me to account faster for potential variables in using android-based AI in the spore-drive tech. But, I mean, lovingly.” 

Tilly’s got her present unwrapped now. It’s a book. Another real one. 

“ _Anne of Green Gables_ ,” Tilly reads, touching the cover reverently. “What’s it about?”

“A romantic, redheaded motor-mouth that everyone learns to love.” 

“Subtle.”

“I thought,” Michael takes a breath. “We’ve read _Alice_ a lot. You probably know it by heart now, too. I thought we could read something new together. And if you like _Anne_ , maybe you can pick the next one.”

“Oh my gosh,” Tilly thwacks Michael on the arm with _Anne_ , carried away. “Like a thing?! Like we could have a thing?! And the thing could be reading!?”

“Considering you’ve been reading to me as many evenings as not the last six months, I’d say it already is.”

“Fucking, yes! This is so cool.” Tilly throws herself towards Michael, but stops just short of actually wrapping her arms around her and asks, “Is it okay if I hug you right now?”

“I think this is an appropriate time for a hug, yes.”

Tilly throws her arms around Michael and shakes her with earnest glee. Michael—the stoniest, coldest, Vulcanest, feelings-repressingest power bitch on _Discovery_ , probably in all of Starfleet—bought her a fucking ink and paper book to celebrate Tilly technically not being on drugs anymore. 

Tilly’s pretty overcome by feels about the whole thing, and, because she’s never been especially good (or interested in) concealing when that is the case, she tells Michael, “I’m pretty overcome by feels right now.”

“And that’s different from your normal state of being how, exactly?”

“You may tease, but I’m trying to say a thing here.” Tilly hadn’t realised she was trying to say a thing, but the thing, it seems, has started to work its way from her chest to her mouth, and since the brain is nowhere along that trajectory, there’s definitely no stopping it now. “So, you know you’re like, my space-family, right?”

Michael raises an eyebrow to match the upturn of her mouth, but doesn’t interrupt.

“I mean, I don’t really have much regular family—just my mother, and let’s not ruin this moment by getting into that mess. Basically, I’ve never had much regular family, and then I met you, and we became like space-family, and that’s so much better than regular family, anyway, you know?” A gross thought suddenly occurs to Tilly. “But, just to clarify, it’s not like I consider you my sister, or my cousin or anything. Space-family is not about labels. It’s just like you showed up on this ship and became my first friendmate—” 

“A whatmate?”

“—and then we almost died together a bunch and we’ve just kind of slotted into each others’ lives and even though the last year slash year-and-nine-months depending on how you’re counting has really sucked a lot, it’s like this space-family thing has just kind of happened on it’s own, kind of seamlessly, you know? Okay, so, not seamlessly. There are seams. As your gift so subtly hints; I still suffer from chronic verbal gaffs and you’re a walking emotional blunder. But we’re… I don’t know, sewing the seams together or something. We’re like seamstresses.”

“Space-seamstresses?” Michael’s voice is coloured with amusement, and it’s the happiest sound Tilly has heard since someone played a classic earth song—something by The Beastie Boys—at a we-made-it-out-of-that-autocratic-waking-nightmare-verse party six months ago.

“Yes! So you’re on board with my metaphor?”

“It’s… not mixed?” Michael tries.

Tilly takes a deep breath and assumes her most resolved stance, arms at her sides, posture correct. 

“Michael, I am going to ask you a question now.” Tilly doesn’t wait for a response to that, because she’s not capable of it. She ploughs on. “I know that you loved Tyler and that you both had something special and that he understood you and WHY am I talking about your ex right now?” Tilly shakes her head, as though that will help to clear it instead of just making a mess of her hair. “I’m starting over.”

“Probably for the best.”

“Michael, would you like— would you like to have a smooching breakfast with me? Tomorrow.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I mean—”

“Let me clarify: I _do_ know what that means. It just doesn’t make any sense, which is utterly illogical. I must be learning to parse Tilly.”

“Sweet,” Tilly says, stoked. “Wait,” she halts. “Is that a… yes?”

“I don’t know,” says Michael, because she loves to piss around—a rebellious legacy of growing up surrounded by the anti-pissing-around brigade. “Breakfast isn’t for a while.”

Tilly’s heart floods with warmth. “That’s hard to deny,” she agrees, looking at the clock that tells her it’s really a lot closer to dinner time. Stupid linearality. 

“Maybe for now you could read to me?” Michael asks.

“Of course!” Tilly practically jumps onto her bed, but before she can even crack open the book and break the spine—the actual, physical spine!—Michael follows her over. 

“Can I sit with you?” she asks, as if Tilly, who mere minutes before had requested a smooching breakfast, would even consider saying no.

“Of course you can. Please do. My bed is your bed and so on. Not that you have to stay here! It’s just that I can’t, you know, hang out in your bed, because of my allergies and my snoring. Wait, let’s just forget I mentioned those—not sexy.”

“Tilly,” Michael says voice firm and steady, but soft, “I don’t care if you snore. Just read.”

Tilly takes a steadying breath and holds the book open, looking at the first page. “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops, and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of old Cuthbert place—” Tilly pauses for a moment, and reads on, silently. “Wow, this whole paragraph is one sentence?” Tilly flips the book shut just long enough to read the name of the author before opening it again, “L. M. Montgomery is a woman after my own heart.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

Tilly starts over again, and when she makes it through the first paragraph, a gentle touch of Michael’s fingers against her own prompts her to shift her grip so that her left thumb and pinky finger are holding the book open, and her right hand is clasped in Michael’s. Tilly reads on for a few pages, but a thought occurs to her, and she just has to check on it. 

“So, just so we’re on the same wavelength, and everything… This—” she gives their clasped hands a small shake, “—means we’re on for smooching breakfast, right?”

Michael side-eyes Tilly, but also brings the hand she’s holding to her mouth and kisses it. 

It’s good enough for Tilly, who acknowledges the answer with a hearty, “Cool,” before turning back to the book. “Alright, voices are happening. Marilla seems like a battle axe, so I’ll just channel my mother.”

For a flickering moment, Tilly feels self-conscious about unsuavely adding her mother issues to the allergies and the snoring thing as she’s sitting on her hypoallergenic bed with Michael. But she lets it go as quickly as it came. It’s been over a year—almost two, if you want to get technical—that they’ve been sharing this room, that they’ve been roomfriends and friendmates and space-family, and in that time Michael has never once made Tilly feel weird about her accommodations (or her mother). On top of that, for nearly half of their time (real time, not theoretical) as friendmates, Tilly’s been doing her best to hold space for Michael, to make her feel equally safe just to be how she needs to be inside this room. That’s what being a friendmate is all about. Except, maybe now they’re not quite friendmates anymore. She’s not sure what she’ll call Michael now. 

“Tilly?” Michael says, after Tilly pauses mid-sentence, lost in thought.

“Mmm? Yes! Read time! Of course. One more point of clarification, and then I’ll finish the chapter.”

“What is it?”

“Can I call you Mickey now?”


End file.
